The present invention relates to a device for the repair of the soft tissue of a patient, and, more particularly, to a device and method to repair the meniscus of a knee of the patient.
The meniscus is basically a crescent shaped fibrocartilage shock absorber that is located intermediate the femur or thigh bone and the tibia or shin bone and which assists in retaining the bones in place and includes an outside meniscus, that is, the lateral meniscus and the inside meniscus or medial meniscus. The meniscus, when healthy, absorbs the shock between the thigh bone and ankle bone by cushioning and distributing the forces across the joint as well as stabilizing the knee by controlling its rotation.
A rather common injury that can occur to the knee is a tearing of the meniscus and which can occur as a result, for example, of a twisting of the knee. The tear can result in uneven surfaces that irritate the joint and can cause pain and swelling and a catching sensation. The irritation can increase the longer the tear remains in the meniscus and it is therefore necessary to take some action to repair the tear for the wellbeing of the patient.
Accordingly, certain tears of the meniscus can be corrected by surgery, particularly arthroscopic surgery where a fiber optic instrument is utilized to aid the physician in observing the procedure carried out within the patient's knee so as to cause a minimum of trauma and invasion of the knee. With the surgery, the procedure is basically to suture the torn portion of the meniscus to thereby repair the tear and to reconstitute the meniscus back to its original status.
Obviously, even with an arthroscopic instrument, the operation is a difficult, delicate procedure, requiring great skill since it requires the use of a suture or sutures that cross or span the tear and then a knot formed and tightened to bring the individual strands of the suture together so as to pull the separated sides of the tear together. One device that is used in such procedures is a double needle suture that has two needles joined by the suture strand. Both needles are passed in a parallel fashion through the meniscus tissue on one side of the tear and through the meniscus tissue on the other side of the tear. A loop is formed in the in the suture on the surface of the meniscus when both of the needles have passed through the meniscus. The free ends of the suture are finally knotted.
Thus a difficulty of the surgery is to be able to insert the needles carrying the suture and surgically position and insert the needles so as to pierce the meniscus to pass through the tissue of the meniscus as well as the tissue of the meniscus that has been torn apart in order to suture the torn portion back into the desired location. Even with the use of the arthroscope, it is a delicate procedure to actually position the suture so as to pass the needles and the suture strand affixed thereto through the meniscus as well as the torn portion of the meniscus at two locations.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a device that can facilitate the aforedescribed medical procedure to repair and reattach a torn portion of a meniscus by the use of suture strand interposed between two needles to carry out the procedure and to a better method of carrying out the procedure itself.